“Peter Pan”—Mr. Davidson cleared his throat—“is not a gay play, Sarah. I mean, there is nothing wrong obviously, with a gay—”

“A girl is playing the lead,” Sarah said, “which is supposed to be a boy.”

Mr. Davidson straightened. A teachable moment.

“In the tradition of theater, in fact if you see most of the broadcast productions of Peter Pan, the part of Peter is played by men and women.”

And could be played by anyone in between, FYI, but I could see Mr. Davidson was trying to make a singular point.

“This town”—Sarah’s voice got high and reedy—“this town has always been— We have always done, like, traditional plays and now, like, just because Mrs. Shirley’s the vice principal, and Anne is here, it’s like—”

Sarah’s eyes flickered in my direction. “It’s like there’s an agenda now.”

“Well.” Mr. Davidson stood and picked up his book with a sharp flick. “I understand that those are your thoughts. There is no agenda obviously—”

“Well.” Sarah’s chin shifted up a notch. “I am going to lodge a complaint.”

A long slow sigh expelled from Berry’s lips.

I realized my hands were clenched under my desk so tight they were starting to cramp.

An agenda complaint???

“Of course, you are free to do so.” Mr. Davidson nodded. “Thank you, Sarah.”

Sarah looked around the classroom, her eyes skimming over my (probably very red) face, and primly lowered herself into her seat. Tanner gave her a punch in the shoulder and she smiled. Gilly looked at her desk.

I made sure to be the first out the door when the bell rang, with Berry close behind. Not that she said anything. Maybe because my body was ticking like a time bomb.

I changed, like, lightning fast and took as isolated a position as I could on the soccer field.

Sarah Pye.

Was an ignorant asshole.

Who wanted to be the lead in a school play more than anything else in the world, clearly, but also knew nothing about theater!

As the game wore on, I watched her jogging around the field, her twin pigtails bouncing next to her face. She looked like she was dancing around the grass with joy.

The joy of being a jerk, I fumed.

Was she really going to complain? I jogged over toward the goalie net.

“Hey.” Berry waved from her post. “Surviving?”

“What do you think about getting in your car and just driving really really far away from here?” I offered.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are we going?”

“The ocean? Shopping? Something? Broadway?”

“For how long are we going?” Berry asked, her eyes darting between me and the action on the field. “Broadway is pretty far.”

“We could be gone anywhere between the next three hours and forever.” I sighed.